


You Don't Have To

by WaitingForTheDay



Series: Dedications [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Not Happy, Sad, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 22:16:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21106895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaitingForTheDay/pseuds/WaitingForTheDay
Summary: "You don't have to." But he did.





	You Don't Have To

**Author's Note:**

  * For [48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue/gifts).

> So! Let me tell you a bit about how 48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue helped me. Sad backstory activated.
> 
> I lost my moral compass a long time ago, and I have always felt like a monster for taking an interest in certain things. I found 48eyes’ writing a little bit ago, when I was mentally in a horrible place. Their writing made me feel a lot better about myself, knowing that I wasn’t the only one who liked eating the Dead Doves. 48eyes has been a huge reason why I kept writing, and at one point was the only reason. I wrote my own story, and I posted it, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that 48eyes not only gave me Kudos, but commented on it and on other fics I’ve written since. This story is the first one I wrote specifically for them. I'm working on another one, too.
> 
> 48eyes, you taught me how to fly when everyone else told me I had broken wings. Thank you.

They thought they’d been chasing a demon. They thought it was an easy mission. Stab a demon, save the town, get out. Now, Sam and Dean were fighting Lucifer himself.

Well, Dean really wasn’t, not since Lucifer knocked him out. It was really just Sam now, standing between his brother and the devil. And the devil, by no surprise, was winning. He had the powers, after all. Sam couldn’t even get a hit in on his own.

“This is fun,” Lucifer said, “But unproductive. Let’s skip the cat and mouse and go straight to the kill.” And he threw Sam aside.

Sam got to his feet to see Lucifer lifting Dean off the ground by his neck.

No.

“Wait,” Sam said, panicking, and to his surprise, Lucifer glanced at him.

“Yes?”

“Don’t hurt him,” Sam breathed. It was a lame thing to say, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

Lucifer smiled at the taller Winchester. “But that’s what I do,” he explained sweetly, as if talking to a child. “I hurt people.”

Sam said the words before he processed them. “You don’t have to.”

At least it made Lucifer put Dean down. “Excuse me?” he asked, looking at Sam curiously.

Stick with it, Sam.

“You… don’t have to. Be like that, I mean.” He started over. “You don’t have to be like that.”

“What do you mean?” Lucifer asked. He didn’t sound hostile, just curious. That was probably a good sign.

“I mean, you don’t have to hurt people. You can choose what you want to do.”

Lucifer stepped towards Sam and tilted his head. “But I’m Satan,” he said. “It’s my job to do this.”

“No,” Sam said. “You made it your job. Your job is whatever you make it. You can be good. The devil can be good.” Did he even believe his own words? It didn’t matter, as long as Lucifer did.

He clearly didn’t. “Sam, everyone expects the devil to be evil. To hurt. To kill. To corrupt.”

“Then surprise them,” Sam said. “Everyone expected me to be a lawyer. Look at me now.”

“But you’re the good guy,” Lucifer pressed. “It’s different for you. It’s so easy for you to do the right thing, the good thing, because that’s what’s expected of you. Try to be evil, to live on the other side. You’ll find switching isn’t quite so easy.”

“I’ve been on the other side,” Sam said. “When I lost my soul.”

“When you lost your soul, you lost your morals,” Lucifer pointed out. “Try knowing what’s right and willingly doing the opposite. You can’t. I can’t. No one can.”

“No one is born good or evil,” Sam said. “You choose who you are. Get out of the mindset you have, and you can do something great.”

Lucifer took another small step towards Sam. “You’re wrong,” he said. “You don’t really believe that. You just want your brother back.”

Crap. “I do believe it,” Sam said.

Lucifer shook his head. “I’ve been lied to too many times,” he said. He picked Dean back up.

“You don’t have to do this,” Sam said, panicking again.

“Maybe I don’t have to,” Lucifer said, “but I will.”

"You don’t have to,” Sam said. And his voice seemed to echo: You don’t have to. You don’t have to. You don’t have to.

And Sam Winchester woke up. He was relieved for a moment, that it was only a dream, but reality hit him when he didn’t see Dean. He swallowed. These dreams had been plaguing him for weeks, since it had actually happened. Since Lucifer had…

A tear slipped down Sam’s cheek. If things had gone differently, could he have saved his brother?

He couldn’t take the dreams anymore. They were too much. He just wanted it to end. He picked up the gun by his bed and put it to his head.

A voice inside of him said, “You don’t have to.” It sounded like Dean.

“I don’t have to,” Sam said out loud to the empty room, “but I will.”

He pulled the trigger.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, have a nice day.


End file.
